Betraying the Olympic Spirit
4 Mar 2004
New campaign calls for sportswear companies to clean up their act
Giant sportswear brands are violating the rights of millions of workers around the world in order to fill shops with the latest and cheapest sports shoes, clothes and accessories in time for the Athens Olympics.
Today in Dublin, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Oxfam Ireland and SIPTU are coming together to launch a new worldwide campaign Play Fair at the Olympics. The campaign calls on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and companies such as Fila, Puma, Umbro, Asics, Mizuno and others to clean up their acts. This is part of a global campaign being launched today by the Clean Clothes Campaign, global unions and Oxfam around the world.
Using new research Play Fair exposes the ruthless tactics used by the global sportswear industry to produce the latest fashions, made cheaper and faster and to ever more punishing deadlines. In order to deliver, suppliers are forcing their employees to work longer and harder, denying them their fundamental workers' rights.
Play Fair researchers spoke to workers such as Phan from Thailand and Fatima who works in an Indonesian factory that supplies Fila, Puma, Nike, Adidas and Lotto:
"We do not feel we can demand higher wages, welfare and legal status," said Phan. "If I don't complete my daily target within regular work hours I have to work overtime without pay... I don't feel that I have job security..." said Fatima.
"The sportswear industry is spending heavily on marketing in the run up to this year's Olympic Games which is supposed to be a showcase for fairness and human achievement. But the exploitation and abuse of workers' right endemic in the industry is violating that Olympic spirit," said David Begg of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions.
"This global business model is allowing the biggest companies freedom to offload cost and risk down the production chain to those who are least able to resist," said Brian Scott, Executive Director of Oxfam Ireland. "Women workers are disproportionately affected and expected to work excessive and often unpaid overtime. They are having to battle against discrimination and fight for a living wage, union rights, maternity leave and pensions."
Play Fair draws on the testimony of workers and factory managers in Bulgaria, Cambodia, Thailand, China, Indonesia and Turkey. These findings show that:
Companies' promises to behave responsibly are often superficial and lacking in credibility, and are ignored by company buying teams who use cut-throat tactics to reach their targets;
Factory managers are failing to meet the high-pressure demands from companies and comply with rules on respecting labor standards at the same time;
The industry is therefore undermining the very labor standards it claims to uphold; some factories falsify records routinely in order to pass inspection and there is plentiful evidence of workers enduring abusive and exploitative working conditions or being sacked for joining a union.
"If hypocrisy and exploitation were an Olympic sport, the sportswear industry would win a medal," said Rosheen Callendar of SIPTU "The industry is sacrificing human rights in the search for profits. Should the race to outfit athletes mean a race of the bottom for these workers?"
The campaign says that change would be in the industry's own interests. Some companies acknowledge that the way the industry works is not sustainable and that they have a responsibility to help solve the problem, but according to the industry has not done enough to clean up the widespread problems in the sector. Play Fair says that the entire industry must work together to change its purchasing practices to begin to make a difference.
The IOC and the Olympic Council of Ireland have an obligation to challenge the abusive business practices of their sponsors and licencees. They are in a strong position to make the noble principles of the Olympic movement really count for the millions of people who produce sportswear around the world. The industry needs to make prices fairer, deadlines more appropriate and treat labor standards as important a set of criteria as cost, time and quality.
The industry must emphasize to every supplier that the rights to join and form trade unions and the right to collective bargaining are fundamental to implementing international labor standards.
"It is not only the big brands which are responsible," said David Joyce of Congress. "Governments must also work together and resist pressure to sacrifice labor standards and local factory owners need to accept their responsibility to respect workers' rights and to pay a living wage."
The Play Fair campaign brings together workers and consumers all over the world to urge the sportswear industry to change the way it works. Events are planned this year to push the IOC and the industry to work with NGOs and union organizations such as the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation to embrace "ethical sourcing" and make their promises a reality.
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To obtain the report and further info
www.ictuglobalsolidarity.org
www.oxfamireland.org
For press inquiry, please contact:
David Joyce 889 7777:
Paul Dunphy from Oxfam Ireland: 00 353 1 604 0706
Note to Editors:
Oxfam Ireland is an independent member of Oxfam, a confederation of organizations working together in more than 100 countries to find lasting solutions to poverty, suffering and injustice. To do this, the Oxfams are working to become part of a movement capable of global responses to global issues. We seek increased worldwide public understanding that economic and social justice is crucial to sustainable development. On this, we aim to become a global campaigning force and to promote the awareness and motivation that comes with global citizenship. The Oxfams seek to shift public opinion on poverty, economic inequity and hunger until equity is given the same priority as economic growth. See www.maketradefair.com and www.oxfamireland.org
Congress is the single umbrella organisation for trade unions in Ireland representing a wide range of interests of almost 750,000 working people, both in the Republic and in Northern Ireland. In 2001 there are 64 unions affiliated to Congress, 48 unions with 543,882 members in the Republic of Ireland and 36 unions with 215,478 members in Northern Ireland.The numbers of women members continue to grow and currently accounts for 44% of our total membership.